


one thing I recall is my birth

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Juno (2007)
Genre: Community: femgenficathon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They never talk about the thing they have in common, the person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one thing I recall is my birth

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: 18) To reach something good, it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience. -- Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), 16th-century Spanish mystic, reformer of the Carmelite Order, and Doctor of the Church.  
> Author's Notes: Thanks to suicideblonde for talking me down. To curt_tone and fishy73 for the beta.

It’s cool. No one here knows about the whole… fat year. Cause really, Juno’s totally hot again after losing the baby weight via bike rides and periodic sex (but ugh, don’t mention that part, especially not to Bren, cause in all possible scenarios, Juno pictures her dragging her poor, innocent weimaraners over to the Bleekers’s and demanding to see a sufficient stash of condoms, and really, his hobbit mom just doesn’t need that strain on her… heart, especially when she and Bleeker broke up _months_ ago and jeez, let’s not even breech that subject). Totally, totally hot.

She can even fit into this awesome retro Rainbow Brite t-shirt that makes her boobs look a-mazing. And really, she’s not even bragging. Some guy told her so last week. And also, a lesbian hit on her like, a month back, that day when she was wearing suspenders and her green corduroys and came to class a little high (okay, a lot high, but it was so worth it, because Professor Anderson has never been so hilarious) and everyone knows that if a lesbian hits on you then you are seriously banging.

But the point is that no one knows. So, if she wants to (and she does, sort of), Juno can be whoever the fuck she wants to. And whoever the fuck she wants to be doesn’t include being a teenage mom, or a statistic, or a mistake, or a slut, or whatever delightful term might be bestowed on her (has been bestowed, will be in the future… doesn’t matter now, won’t matter then).

It’s nice, being in a place where she can’t just fuck around all the time. The fucking around at college is limited to _some_ of the time, and the rest she actually spends trying. Thinking, and listening in class, and actually caring about what she’s learning. And maybe high school was supposed to be like this too, if you don’t grow up in the most retarded town ever and kind of hate everyone.

She doesn’t even mention Minnesota for a whole semester aside from the necessary paper work and once when she’s drunk and tells her floor supervisor where—in fact—she plans on going for the weekend if she’s reprimanded and kicked off campus (she isn’t and she doesn’t, but what’s out is out, and Juno doesn’t talk to Stephanie for a week until she realizes that, as floor supervisor, Stephanie probably already has access to things like personal records, and thus would know down to address and parents name and phone number Juno’s history. But Juno still has a solid nine-month secret, so the freeze is dropped, so long as psycho doesn’t report her smelling like incense again). And of course, Christmas break is awkward.

They haven’t pushed (weekly emails from Bren, and an occasional footnote from Juno’s dad, compared to some people that Juno knows—who she drinks, or tokes with—isn’t pushing) so Juno is a little surprised to see how things have changed. Of course, Mac still fixes air conditioning in a crappy van, and Bren still dresses her dogs better than herself. Liberty Bell is bigger, though, and she looks like she actually understands… stuff. L.B. gives Juno a hug, just over the threshold, making her feel immediately foreign, lost.

Juno is wearing skinny jeans in a world where time has kept moving without her. There are things in her head that weren’t the last time she stood in this spot, and yet her father is there, nodding. “Pumpkin,” he says, smiles.

\--

After dinner, Bren is picking up the dishes for Mac and L.B. to wash when she turns to Juno with a grin. “Hey! Mail for you, Kiddo!”

“Yeah?”

“Over on the third shelf of the hutch, next to the Precious Moments.”

It’s a small stack: a few advertisements, a credit card company, Dancing Elk Condors memorabilia, and a handwritten letter, no stamp. She opens that first.

\--

They meet at Ridgedale Mall, on the outer ring of the food court. Juno thinks she’s probably spent the last year and a half avoiding this moment, coming up with reasons why it should never happen. There’s no reason why it should.

“I didn’t think you would come,” Vanessa says, and the way she shifts says that she really didn’t, and for some reason that makes Juno feel a little better, like she actually has some power left here. (She doesn’t. She is completely at Vanessa’s mercy. Who, despite everything, probably has the kid hidden behind a pillar or a fountain somewhere, just waiting to jump out. He probably bites. He would.)

“Um, I’m just gonna get some coffee and sit down, okay?”

Silence between them for four minutes and thirty nine seconds—Juno has one eye on her watch—before Vanessa clears her throat. “So, Juno. I asked you here because I thought you might be interest—“

The chair screeches as she shoves it back. “I’m really, really not.” Juno’s heart is a fluttering mess, and she’s afraid to let go of her coffee cup, but her hand is so tight that it all might burst. “I don’t want to meet him, I don’t want pictures, I don’t—I don’t even want to know his name.” Her voice climbs higher and louder and she backs away, fast.

Everything crumbles on top of her; she isn’t just _anyone_. She is Juno MacGuff. She is from this shitty, shitty town. She had a baby before she graduated from high school. She was a whale for Halloween.

Vanessa’s voice is quiet, but she approaches. “I’m not trying to… Look, Juno. I respect what your choice.”

“I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

\--

Christmas really fucking blows. Bren buys her a sweater and a kitchy notebook, Mac a gift card to Hot Topic: “That’s what’s hip these days, right Pumpkin? Enjoy yourself.” Her gifts for them are probably equally off the mark.

L.B. has to exchange the t-shirt Juno bought her, so they go to the mall the next day, despite the swearing up and down that the mall after major holidays is the devil’s playground. On the way out, Juno checks the mail and finds another unstamped envelope.

There’s nothing inside but a picture, and she doesn’t have to guess to know. She looks into his baby eyes. Takes in his baby head, little fingers. Vanessa has dressed him in a little sweater, and in this capture, he could almost be smiling. For almost a minute, Juno looks at the child.

Liberty Bell shouts “Unlock the door, Juno!”

“Right on,” Juno says, looking up and dropping the picture to the pavement. “Let’s go.”


End file.
